I received this book from Playwrights Canada Press in exchange for an honest review.
Grieving siblings Natalie, a palliative care nurse, and Bart, a minister, contemplate life and death after the death of their mom. When a storm hits, a disabled angel visits them and takes the siblings and the audience along to talk about death and understand the hopes, fears, and expectations around it. Continue reading
“Photos soon emerged: heads on spikes outside of rides, corpses floating in detention cells, and viscera decaying in the humid Florida sun. FantasticLand, where ‘Fun is Guaranteed!’, was covered in blood,” (Bockoven 2).
Welcome to FantasticLand, promising visitors that “Fun is Guaranteed!” since the 1970s. But when the deadly Hurricane Sadie destroys the Florida coast, a group of mostly young employees agree to stay behind to make sure the park isn’t looted and are promised to be paid to do so. When rescue crews arrive for the employees five weeks later, they find a hellish site: heads on spikes, bodies lined up in a row, and the employees themselves separated into different factions and waring against each other. None of the employees had their phones with them, a FantasticLand policy, and one reporter takes it upon himself to interview some of the survivors and try to piece together what happened at FantasticLand, and how a group of young adults could resort to violence against one another so quickly. Continue reading
“I used pop culture…as a kind of glue to hold me together when I was hurtling through disaster…jamming a piece of pop culture into an absence in my life, no matter how poorly matched, seemed fine. It seemed like the only, no, the best thing to do,” (Sookfong Lee 4).
Author Jen Sookfong Lee has always been obsessed with pop culture. From religiously reading the Anne of Green Gables series to watching Bob Ross with her sister, finding a celebrity nemesis with Gwyneth Paltrow and motivational lessons from Rihanna, pop culture is an integral part of Sookfong Lee’s identity. Pop culture has helped her find comfort and consolation after the death of her father as well as helping her cope with her mother’s mental health struggles, it’s allowed Sookfong Lee to recognize how the media portrays Asian women versus who she actually is. Through her love, analysis, and criticism of pop culture, Jen Sookfong Lee finds out who she is and is proud to show it to the world. Continue reading
“What follows are some of the most dangerous stories of my life: the ones I have avoided, the ones I haven’t told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. These are the stories that have haunted and directed me, unwittingly, down circuitous paths,” (Polley 3).
Screenwriter, director, and actor Sarah Polley encounters her trauma in this memoir. Polley runs towards the danger in an honest and thoughtful way in her debut book of essays. From dangerous movie sets to scoliosis and battling grief and mental illness, a difficult pregnancy, recounting a famous Canadian sexual assault case, and trauma from a concussion. Continue reading
A very exciting and hard to believe update, but my short story “A Guided Meditation for the End” has made the gritLIT 2023 Writing Contest Shortlist! Thank you so much gritLIT for this amazing honour!
Sometimes, you have prior knowledge about weird saints (especially canine ones), other times strange saints come to you. Such is the case of Saint Margaret who I learned about from my sister’s teenage not-Catholic co-worker. This one’s for you!
I’m so honoured to have found out this morning that my short story “A Guided Meditation for the End” made it to gritLIT’s 2023 Writing Contest longlist!
Check out the full longlist here!
“Witches were never capitalists. We were the thing that stood in the way of capitalism, which is just the engine of the patriarchy, after all. Witches were not all killed by fire. We are the fire,” (Dimaline 133).
Lucky St. James is not so lucky. Her beloved Metis mother Arnya died when she was young, she’s stuck working temp jobs because she can’t find any writing ones, and now she and her grandmother Stella, who raised her, are about to be evicted from their apartment. Then one night Lucky finds a small spoon with the word SALEM engraved on it and is brought to the actual town by Meena Good where she finds out that she is a witch and that Meena has been called to bring together the seven witches who find their silver spoons to form a coven. Except that the last spoon is missing, and the deadline to form the coven is fast approaching. But Lucky is up for the challenge and ready to accept her destiny going on a road trip throughout the United States with her forgetful grandma to find the last spoon and form the coven. But a witch hunter, Jay Christos, is aware of the spoon and the last witch as well and will do anything to stop the coven from being formed, which means he’s right on Lucky’s trail every step of the way. Continue reading
I received this book from Playwrights Canada Press in exchange for an honest review.
Caroline is the daughter of The Prophet and excited for her Divine Birthday, when the Angels will come and impregnate her. She knows her boyfriend Ian will make a great father; he’s promised her he read all the materials and is fully ready to commit to her. But they need some new recruits, like Ian’s ex Wasp and their girlfriend Janey, Caroline’s best friend. But Janey and Wasp have no interest in the church and are proud of their identities, even if their town has banned birth control, Janey’s last-ditch effort at transitioning. Janey and Wasp need to get out, and hopefully find a way out for Caroline’s closeted sister Rachel, but the church has ways of finding them. Continue reading
Sometimes I wish it was enough to just say that I was feeling sad, but there’s always been a taboo against that. I’m not the only person who’s felt obligated to say that they were fine when they were anything but, to stitch a smile on my face and pretend to be happy. Continue reading
Sarah O'Connor 